VISITORS from across the north west headed to the shores of Windermere to take part in a celebrated event.

Families braved the rain as they headed to Fell Foot Park to take part in this year's All England Open Stone Skimming Championships.

The event, which has been running for the past eight years, welcomes people of all ages to take part in the time-honoured tradition of stone skimming to raise money for the South Cumbria Rivers Trust.

Julius Barratt, a trustee of the trust and organiser of the event, was delighted by the turnout.

He said: "I'm amazed at the amount of people here - it's just incredible.

"But people like to skim. The amount of people who have come out in this weather just to skim a stone is amazing."

All the funds from the day will be donated to SCRT, which works to protect all fresh water environments throughout the area.

During the event, the trust had a number of stands that explained their work and some demonstration activities that enabled children to learn a little more about nature.

Jayne Wilkinson, catchment planning and delivery officer at SCRT, said: "This event is raising money for the charity so we continue some of the education programmes in school. It's about bringing the project back to them".

Families from home and away turned out to take part in the day's event, with children as young as five trying their hand at skimming.

Janet Burbidge, 46, from St Anne's, was delighted to be taking part.

She said: "We've been to Fell Foot before for days out, but have never done the stone skimming before. It's just a random day out.

"It's been really fun and we've really enjoyed it. It's a great day for all age groups."

Another visitor, Peter Binkes, from Bolton, is staying in the area with his family and decided to come along.

He said: "We came up yesterday and had a look online to see what's going on and noticed this. We thought that it was something not to be missed."

Frances Tomlinson, from Preston, was also at the event with her young family and said it was the perfect family day out.

She said: "We came on Thursday and there was glorious sunshine. We saw that the stone skimming was on so we thought why not have a go?

"It's been a brilliant family day out ."

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